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New on Kindle (October 2015) Non-fiction – Write a decent book, Tweet a few times, accept any spontaneous reviews graciously, and keep all of your friends…

This isn’t a ‘How to sell a million copies’ or ‘How to be a New York Times bestseller’ guru session. This is not for seasoned ‘Authorpreneurs’ looking for new promotion and sales tactics. It is NOT a tried-and-tested formula for writing a blockbuster novel. And it will not tell you how to become a billionaire through exploiting your hidden USP (Unique Selling Point).

Neither is it a Zen lifestyle guide, telling you that it is simply a case of convincing the world (and yourself) that you are the world’s top author, and you will be showered with money, Nobel prizes, Oscars, Specsavers Daggers, retail sponsorship, street-value turnips, or whatever else takes your fancy.

None of the above. It’s a journal of the everyday life of a modern, under-the-radar indie author since the global self-publishing trend started, and a few confessions of advising others while being a Useful Technical Person to Have Around…

It is also a book for beginners, giving tutorials and case studies – on the subjects of inspiration, motivation, genre, legal hurdles, research, editing, and identifying your ideal market audience – along with the rocket science of formatting your documents, uploading them, and some gentle cautionary advice on publishing issues and promotions.

There will be laughs. There will be tears. There will be revealing examples made (and for readers with browser-enabled tablets or PC reading apps, links to working samples of multimedia content).

Above all, it’s designed to save you time, hassle (and ultimately, save you money) when joining the indie author phenomenon.

Lisa Scullard went online one day in 2014 to find she was suddenly (and without warning) a WordPress-promoted top blogger in Reader on the subject of ‘Writing & Blogging’ – and promptly understood the full meaning of the phrase: “With great power comes great responsibility.” This subsequent book is an organised compilation of relevant blog posts, tutorials, articles, experimental book trailers and journal entries made over the years, covering the topics of writing, researching, editing, publishing and promotion. It has been an undertaking of mass rewrites, edits, revisions, expositions and updates, and some keyboard-crunching efforts at formatting, in order to justify such an unprecedented amount of recognition.

Writing & Publishing For Yourself: The Indie Author Handbook, Self-Publishing Toolkit, and Staying Sane Survival Guide (or ‘The Adventures of an I.T. Helpdesk’) is available now on Amazon Kindle

Christie Harding is a rising star of Manhattan society. With her boutique gallery about to reveal the identity of the controversial artist ‘Paparazzka’ at a gala charity event for the A-list, and her very private relationship with PR guru Derek Goldman sure to be made official at any time, life could not be going better for the former Swiss finishing school debutante.

Adrik Maksimov remembers her from Switzerland eleven years ago, for a very different reason. Then the reckless young heir to a Russian shipping fortune, he had gatecrashed the debutantes’ ball while in the country to deposit some diamonds in a Swiss bank, on a mission of trust from his father. Finding himself inextricably distracted by the younger Christie Harding, the diamonds vanished, and he was left tied to a bed in an exclusive chateau with only a kiss to remember her by…

When keen Forensic Anthropology student Sarah Bellum has to attend an interview in her housemate’s place, with the enigmatic vending machine entrepreneur Crispin Dry of Dry Goods, Inc, it sets off a chain of events that will alter her weekend plans for ever…

Sound familiar? Good – it’s a parody. Of many stories – almost all of them famous. Just check out the chapter headings for an idea of what’s in store!

Finding herself drawn hypnotically to this dark and complicated (and dead) man – Sarah, her housemate (name as yet unremembered) and their friends become embroiled in a family whose business is steeped in history. Or maybe just lost in it.

An action-packed adventure of love, loyalty, war, alcohol, zombies, rickshaws, and squid. Some things will be changed in your hearts afterwards for evermore – but hopefully not the bits that work.

Based on “The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, the first in The Zombie Chronicles Of Oz “The Terrible Zombie Of Oz” is a spoof, parody or ‘mash-up’ of the original first novel. Leading into a new series inspired by Mr. Baum, the first book invites the reader to see the original Land of Oz in a new light, in which Dorothy is carried by a great Cyclops to the Land of the Feast where the Munchbrains live, accidentally killing the Wicked Witch who has kept them in bondage for so long. And makes new friends as she tries to find a way back home, including a Cowardly Lion with a bell on, a Tin Woodman and his enchanted axe, and a Scarecrow obsessed with braiiiins… But never fear. This is not your traditional ‘zombie tale’ full only of bone-crunching, neck-nibbling sideshows for the sake of creative special effects using jelly and old ladies’ pantyhose. (Plenty of room for those in the sequel). “The Terrible Zombie Of Oz” is a more cerebral mystery to be unravelled, wherein the sentiment of Mr. Baum is preserved, along with all of the, er, violence that was included in the original.

Post-adolescent grunge fiction… enter, one teenage blackmailer, one troubled band frontman, one questionably unresolved suicide, and an alternative religious history, for an irreverent and unpredictable swipe at youth culture, and the power of the small-time Media. As the town’s most notorious blackmailer, 19-year-old Kim Blackshields has plenty on her plate. Unscrupulous journalists trying to rummage through her stuff, two best friends and blood brothers whose main hobby is tapping phones – even in cohorts with the local police – and a younger brother also into blackmail, whose friends seem to think she’s an easy target. And the small matter of the Halloween fiasco… When the youth club Halloween event has to replace the live band at short notice, Kim tracks down The Hellraisers to step in, fronted by the charismatic, Harley-riding Alastair Brash. Who manages to live up to their name. Not that anyone’s complaining. The youngsters of Jericho already know far too much about explosives and burying things under concrete, and day-to-day Satanism is a way of life – even if no-one practises much these days (there’s always the goat pinata to look forward to on Black Mass). There’s just an ongoing drama in the local Press about an unresolved ‘suicide’ of a young model, and who they’re likely to pin the blame on. But when the Halloween party ends violently and abruptly, and Alastair disappears leaving behind a large puddle of blood, it looks like there’s more to this town than just nosey hacks and blackmail… Contains adult humour.

Lara Leatherstone – not her real name, she got it from an internet Porn Star Name Generator…
…And Connor Reeves, also not his real name, as it turns out – how he came by his, is less clear…
Both are obliged to work their way through the To Do List of ‘Hollywood Hit-Men’ – a breed mostly preoccupied with gold chains, impressing barmaids, and shady contracts – erasing these unwanted pests with the minimum of paperwork. Or pay.
When she’s not under surveillance by Head Office, Lara spends her time juggling a night job in bar security, an only child with a zombie fixation, and what passes for a social life in the small hours in between. And the small matter of ongoing internal scrutiny, by her own highly-self-monitoring personality disorders.
She is often distracted by her own psychotic train of thought, and analyses the dysfunctional relationships she sees in everyday life, because she’s never had one.
When her head office try to set her up in a team with a wingman, her main concern is they’re trying to manufacture a weakness that they can manipulate her with – not to mention once they agree on a working colleague, Pest-Control-sniper-turned-police-officer Connor, that he might be quite manipulative too…
Death & The City, released in two parts as Books One and Two, comprises the first instalment in the Tales Of The Deathrunners series.

Following on directly from Book One, ‘Death And The City: Book Two’continues the ongoing bloody, moral, psychological and fashion dilemmas of professional hit-man’s nemesis and single working female Lara Leatherstone (her Porn Star Name Generator alias of choice), as she catches up with paid contract killers on the To Do List.
Which she fits in between the sometimes mundane requirements of her regular nightclub job, and the irrational fear of dating, all under constant self-scrutiny for ulterior motives.
It’s been a while since the last Firearms Amnesty, meaning the collection scavenged from her targets is taking up more room in her kitchen cupboards than there is left for teabags. And threats of new technology mean that upgrades are now necessary all of the time, and not the kind she wants to park in her driveway or answer her mobile phone to any time soon.
In the meantime, her targets and associates seem to have rather a lot of time on their hands for alternative escapist lifestyles and online fantasy worlds, blissfully unaware of as crossing over into her own quite real one.
And her new wingman, Connor, has another agenda of his own. Rather than the one she’s mainly concerned about, which is that Head Office are trying to gain more blackmail leverage. When they’re not trying to get her to recruit more ‘Deathrunners’ or to send them photographs of herself dressed as Catwoman trying on shoes, neither of which she is keen to do, for various reasons…

READER PREFERENCE ENABLED EDITION (see below) – Books One and Two of ‘Tales of the Deathrunners’ included.HOW THIS EBOOK WORKS:
This version of Death & The City has been adapted for you to literally ‘cut to the chase’ and skip past Lara’s longer internal thought-processes. You’ll see the hyperlinked word SKIP in the right margin, which will take you into the next action segment.
If you want to return to the top of the segment you skipped, the word BACK will take you there.
So depending on your reader preference – for the times when you just want to stay in the action, and for when you want to know what’s going on in that mind of Lara’s – you can either jump ahead, or read the whole thing continuously – it’s up to you.

Death & The City: Books One and Two combined in a single eBook – with the addition of bonus material in the form of the original feature screenplay, ‘Heavy Duty’ written in 1999 by the author Lisa Scullard. The movie script eventually formed a basis for the back-story of the lead character ‘Lara Leatherstone’ in Death & The City, and was written at a time when old school private security still ran the show… So if you like your doormen to be of the original archetypes, you’ll definitely find them lurking in the not-too-distant past here.